It looked the war was getting different

As a matter of fact, the year of 1943 actually became a crucial point of the war. A character of the war was changing dramatically in favor of the Soviet Union. Chronologically that year presented with annihilation of the 6^th German Army at Stalingrad. Then the battle of Kursk followed and actually proved that Germany had lost its initiative in the war. This battle started on 5^th of July with the German attack the Kursk salient, and progressed at Prokhorovka village on 12^th of July with a mass tank battle when the Soviet counter-offensive attack at the Kursk salient began.

On August 3^rd the Operation Belgorod – Kharkov started which is considered as the concluding phase of the battle of Kursk. The results of this unseen before German tragedy became:

Kiev was liberated on 6^th of November and became a reasonable accord before the International Conference in Teheran. This conference outlined the fate of Adolph Hitler and fascist Germany. Ally leaders of the Soviet Union, the USA and Great Britain met together to decide on the fate of this aggressive German policy.

1944 became a memorial year for millions of Ukrainians as the German Army Groups were heavily defeated in a series of ten military operations. The battle for Ukraine lasted for nearly four months and resulted in the following successful operations:

1. Operation Zhitomir-Berdichev, took place in December - January;
2. Operation Kirovograd, liberated the town in January;
3. Operation Korsun-Shevchenko, took under Soviet control these areas during January - February;
4. Operation Rowno-Lucky, liberated these areas during 27 Jan.-11 Feb.;
5. Operation Nikopol-Krivoi Rog, 30 Jan.-29 Feb.;
6. Operation Proskurov-Chernovtsy, 4 Mar.-17 Apr.;
7. Operation Uman-Botoş ani, 4 Mar.-17 Apr.;
8. Operation Bereznegovatoye-Snigirevka, 6-18 Mar.;
9. Operation Polesie, 15 Mar.-5 Apr.;
10. Operation Odessa, liberated the famous Russian city in April

The same year ended the siege of Leningrad and liberated Novgorod from the German occupation. In April – May the Soviet troops exhausted and beat Germans in the Crimean Peninsular and liberated Sebastopol. During the summer of 1944 German troops were loosing one after another all Byelorussian towns and villages. Bobruisk and Vitebsk, Orsha and Mogilev, Polotsk and Vilna, Belostock and Brest drove Germans to the place where they started this war.

Liberation of European countries began when Rumania withdrew its war to the USSR and declared a war on Germany. The USSR declared war on Bulgaria, and liberated Sofia. Soviet and Yugoslav Liberation Armies joined and liberated Belgrade from the occupation. The war was coming closer and closer to the heart of Nazism, Berlin.

The Yalta Conference took place on the 4^th of February, 1945 and synchronized allied actions against the Nazi Germany. Despite the German counter-offensive attack at the Lake of Balaton in Hungary, the whole world understood that the days of Nazi Germany were coming to the end. During April, Soviet armies advanced in Vienna direction and the modern Austrian capital was liberated from the occupation.

Yalta Conference

Yalta Conference was one of the most important meetings of Allied leaders during World War II. These leaders were the President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the United States, the Prime Minister Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom, and the Premier Minister Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union. Their countries became known as “the Big Three." The conference took place at Yalta, a famous Black Sea resort in the Crimea. When the meeting began, the Soviet Union held the strongest European military position. Soviet armies controlled and liberated much of Eastern Europe, and they were preparing to enter Berlin. The agenda at the Yalta Conference included the major problems in a postwar Europe.

Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin agreed on several points. These points were the following:

1. accept the structure of a world peacekeeping organization that was to become the United Nations;

2. reestablish order in Europe and to help the defeated countries create democratic governments;

3. divide Germany into four zones that would be occupied by Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and France;

4. support the Soviet-backed government and hold free elections in Poland, and to extend the Soviet Union's territory into Poland;

5. Force Germany to give the Soviet Union equipment and other resources as a contribution for the Soviet losses.

6. The Soviet Union also agreed to enter the war against Japan in exchange for control of the Kuril Islands, the southern half of Sakhalin Island, and two strategic ports.

After the war many critics who were not even burn said that Franklin Delano Roosevelt had " sold out" Eastern Europe and had given too much to the Soviet Union. But most serious scholars believe that the Yalta Conference produced a traditional and balanced settlement of the world. They argue that the Soviet Union held the superior military and political position in Eastern Europe and yet made the greatest concessions at the conference.

The Soviet Army captured Berlin on 2^nd of May, 1945. The war turned into Berlin streets and squares as if it could save the fate of Nazi monsters. May, 8 Germany surrendered and the Great Patriotic War came to its logical end.

Discussion:

1. Why did the Western powers agree to give “too much to the Soviet Union”?
2. What did the Yalta Conference approve about the defeated countries?
3. Which of the participant countries held the strongest position at the conference? Why?
4. The United Nations Organization aimed at maintaining peace and security in the post-war world, didn’t it?
5. What do you know about the United Nations Organization?
6. What are the countries members of the Security Council?